Tag Archives: advergame

In November of 2011, Domino’s Pizza released their new app and advergame, “Pizza Hero“. An advergame is a game expressly created for the purpose of promoting a product or service. Pizza Hero is awesome. The player is taken through the entire pizza making process, having you knead dough, spread sauce, add cheese and toppings, cook the pie, and slice and box it. You compete with other users because based on the quality of your pie you are awarded points. The better you get at the game, the more challenging it gets. The difficulty isn’t the only thing that increases. As you play, you get hungrier, too!

The point of an advergame is to get people thinking about your product, but Pizza Hero goes one step further. If playing this game has you salivating at the mouth, have no worries, you can order a pizza for delivery right from the game itself!

Pizza Hero does it right. This advergame is playing off of Domino’s famous transparency campaign, allowing the public to “participate” in what goes on in the Domino’s kitchen. The game graphics are realistic enough to make you hungry for a steaming pizza, and at the end if you decide to act on this hunger impulse, you can order a pie from the app itself.

For a few decades now, there have been shifts in the percentage of people who make their own meals at home. The numbers have been steadily decreasing as people rely more and more on take out and delivery for dinner. Pizza Hero is sort of interesting in that it allows the consumer to “participate: in the pizza-making process so that at the end when they pay the delivery driver it’s almost like they made it themselves. What do you guys think about Domino’s Pizza Hero as an advergame? Entertaining, persuasive, or both?